Clos Beauregard 2013

I got this wine at Charles de Gaule airport, waiting to fly to Pau on the way for the Order of Malta Lourdes pilgrimage at the beginning of the month. I thought we were going to have it one night at dinner at the hotel. In the end, it followed us to Bordeaux and then back hon=me and we had it on Mother's Day. It was a wine we have not met in Hong Kong, and it was a reasonable price.

Originally a plot in the lower reaches of Chateau Beauregard, it was sold to Antoine Moeuix in 1939 and owned by the same family till recently. Now the 15 acre estate planted mainly with Merlot produces some 38000 bottles from vines over 40 years of age. The fruit is hand harvested and fermented in steel before maturing in a mix of new and 1 year old barrels for 12 months before bottling. The wine was a deep purple ruby with a  sweet acid woody berry nose. The palate was sweet woody and acid with plummy berry notes spiced up with tannins, well supported by an acid tannic backbone.

Chambolle Musigny Les Pas de Chats 2005

We tasted this wine the other day. The producer is not one known to me, but looking it up on the Web, it seems that this is a family owned estate since 1910 with a number of excellent village and 1er Cru parcels in Chambolle-Musigny, Vosne-Romanee and Gevrey-Chambertin. Les Pas des Chats is a Chambolle-Musigny village level lieu-dit which only this producer seem to bottle.

This bottle from 2005 was a light ruby with a suggestion of orange. The nose was sweet acid and orangey with meaty notes. The palate continues with its orange and acid character accompanied by a hint of sweetness. There was a mouthwatering plummy acidity on swallowing which carried forward to a finished partnered with a touch of astringency.

Visit to Chateau d'Yquem

The most anticipated winery visit for my Bordeaux trip was the visit to Chateau d'Yquem. Having booked and paid for the visit was the reason we had the accidental side trip to Sauternes. After having visiting a few Sauternes estates already, the winery visit was still interesting enough because of all the things they do a bit differently to the others (which presumable enabled them to stay on top of the game). The recent change in the way Y was made was also good to know.

We tasted the Y 2015 and the Yquem 2013. Unfortunately, I managed to forget to take photos of the bottles. In some ways both fell short of expectation. Y was supposed to get more interesting with age, and we were tasting a very young wine. Yquem was good, but then youe expect it to be superlative every time, all the time, and this didn't seem quite to make that high note. The wines need another entry to do full justice (even when they somewhat disappoint).

Tasting a Sauternes from the barrel

Tasting barrel samples seemed to be something reserved for wine professional, but my wife and I were given a go when we visited Chateau Sigalas Rabaud. For the tasting at the end of the chateau visit, we started with the dry white, Les Demoiselle de Sigalas 2014, which was followed by the second wine, Lieutenant de Sigalas 2011. This was followed by a barrel sample from the 2016 vintage of the Grand Vin. the wine was a nice golden yellow, with an orangey grapefruit sweet acid nose. The palate was sweet luscious and acid with lots of tropical fruit notes, well supported by an acid sweet backbone. we also tried a special bottling of a wine they bottled without sulphits, but that merits another tidbit.

Bags of Bordeaux

Wine boxes are commonly seen everywhere, but here in Hong Kong, they mainly come from Australia. In France supermarkets sell all sorts of these wine bags (some comes in boxes enclosing the bags too). Having drunk different wine boxes from Australia, we decided to try a bag of Bordeaux from the French supermarkets. The brand of the bag is one which I have seen in supermarkets here in HK, but only in bottles, It's not visible from this picture, but there is a note (in French) that the quality of the wine is assured for 2 months after opening (better than Best Before or Expiry Dates, and more relevant as the wine only starts oxidising after opening). The tap was sealed with a foil tab. As for the wine, it was a deep ruby, with a sweet acid fruity nose. The palate was markedly soft with the same sweet acid and fruit elements, with an acid backbone spiced up with a smidgeon of tannins.

A perplexing wine from Piedmont

 

I tried this wine the other day. It is being sold somewhere here in Hong Kong but the strange thing is why this wine was made.  The label already says that it is a blanc de noir (white wine made from black grapes, as it says in Italian). The choice of the black grape is interesting, as it is not one usually associated with Piedmont region. The grape is Pinot Noir, more usually associated with regions like South Tyrol, Trentino and Veneto etc.

The wine was a pale peach colour with a touch of pink. There were notes of peach and  stone fruit on the nose with sweet and acid notes. The palate was sweet fruity and acid (though residual sugar was only 3g/L) supported by an acid backbone. Now what did the vigneron and wine maker want to achieve with this creation?

Tubes of Wine

I encountered these wine tubes during the recent visit to Bordeaux. The upper photo was seen in a wine shop doing double duty as a tasting station for Chateau Lamothe (Despujols). The lower of the two pictures was actually taken at Chateau Guiraud and contains their own 2002 vintage.  The volume of 100 mls is the maximum you can take for a liquid container on board an aircraft and it is equivalent to a good glass. Of course they are very much gimmicks, and is actually expensive compared to a normal bottle, but then I have encountered Tokay Essencia being sold in 100 ml bottles many years before - in their case (with residual sugars well above 500g/L) one 100 ml container is what a small dinner party might consume at the end of a nice meal.

An accidental side trip to Sauternes

I made the mistake of not studying the map carefully when I started booking winery visits for a few days stay in Bordeaux after the Lourdes pilgrimage. Although it was blatantly obvious that the Medoc appellations can stretch a long way towards the Atlantic and away from the city, it was not so obvious that Sauternes, which was just next to Graves is also not very near, We found out after a very expenisve taxi ride from Chateau Pape Clement. In the end, we found a place to stay for the night in Sauternes itself, for we had paid for a visit in the afternoon of the next day to Chateau d'Yquem.The consequence of this little side trip was I gave up trying for the vineyards of the Medoc and the Right Bank as I cannot assure myself of reasonable transport arrangements. WE explored the city instead for the remaining day.

Lamproie a la bordelais

 

This classic delicacy from Bordeaux pairs their lampreys with leeks, garlic and lardons in a rich red wine sauce enriched with its blood. I tried it at a good restaurant in a recent visit to Bordeaux. The eel-like fish was quite meaty after being stewed in the rich and robust sauce and it went well with the St Emilion Grand Cru that I chose for the meal.

Red wine with fish is an unusual combination in that the tannins often overpower the delicacy of the fish, but for fish like salmon and tuna, people are already drinking light reds with them. In any case, cooking something in a suitable red wine is a sure way to ensure that one drinks that wine with that dish. Choosing a claret for this Bordelais specialty is sure to be a winner.

An unexpected meeting with a vigneron

We were at the Order of Malta International Mass at Lourdes and waiting for the underground Basilica to fill up when a conversation was struck up with a Knight sitting behind us. This French Knight turned out to the Comte de Dampierre, who owns the Chateau de Plassac in the Cognac region. One of only a handful of chateaux in the Cognac region, the estate (which had been in his family for 8 generations) produces Cognac, Pineau de Charentes as well as Vin de Pays Charentes. The latter is from Cabernet and Merlot, which gives a clue to the grapes used for the red Pineau.

Drinking the wines of the locality

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, so goes the saying. Why not drink the local wines whilst on pilgrimage in Lourdes? (That said, Bordeaux is part of Gascony, which includes Pau and Lourdes.) Not only did we try Jurancon (both the sweet and the dry versions) as well as Madiran, we also got to try Bearn wine, which comes from an area slightly more towards the Atlantic coast (and an appellation that I had hitherto not met). That's of course in addition to the vineyard visit whilst at Pau. The whites are mostly made from Gros and Petit Manseng, whilst the local red grape is Tannat. Of course, they are no strangers to me, but to others from Hong Kong, they can be a novelty.

A 40 year old Portuguese wine

Various different National Associations of the Order of Malta set up stands in the lobby of the Solitude Hotel in Lourdes and sell items ranging from nice accessories for uniforms to souvenirs. I saw this bottle of wine at the Portuguese stand and they told me it was a 40 year old port and at a very reasonable price. Of course I bought it. However, it was not easy to find out about it though. Googling the Quinta leads me to a hotel, but Canelas and Regua are both in Port country in upper Duoro. So it is likely that it is a port wine of some sort from an unknown maker, or even something that they kept aside for the family (as Garraferia Familiar would suggest). We'll find out when we get round to tasting it.

Wine Tasting in Pau

We passed through Pau on the way to Lourdes (for pilgrimage) and visited a vineyard to try out Jurancon wines. I had booked this visit whilst waiting for departure from Hong Kong via the Internet. We took a taxi to the vineyard and tried the full range of its wines. Now Jurancon was a wine I first tried in the 1980s, well before I knew anything about this region. I tried Jurancon sec 7 years ago when I visited Lourdes then.

The winery presented 2 dry and 2 sweet wines as well as a vendange tardive wine, all of which were quite interesting. I then spotted a methode traditionelle sparkler. As the winery rent out a space for events, this was a product they had made for this purpose. Of course I tried that, but this is for a later tidbit!

Domaine de Chevalier 2009

I picked this wine for a family birthday celebration. Though better known for its whites, the red wines of Domaine de Chevalier are nevertheless still very good and the shelf display showed a good score with a reasonable price. It proved to be a good choice. We had roast beef that day and this went down with it like a treat.

Although a young wine, it turned out to have reached the drinking stage, even though it had a deep purple ruby hue. The nose was sweet with plenty of fruit and a touch of wood, whilst the palate gave a nice balance of sweet fruit acidity and tannins, leading onto a backbone of acid and tannins giving sterling support.

Chateau Rol Valentin 2007

This was one of the wines we had at our last wine dinner, which last minute illness and cancellations was basically decimated attendance. Despite wrecking the theme, we managed to cut some wines and enjoyed a pleasant evening. We were going to drink a number of wines with the vintages ending in 7 and that would still have ended up mainly with the 1997 and 2007 vintages. After the cuts we still managed to sample both vintages. Chateau Rol Valentin is one of those garagiste wines, but not one of those hideously expensive wines, and not excessively "Parkerised". This wine (rated 88 points by Wine Spectator) was a deep ruby with a sweet tannic fruity acid nose. The palate was dry fruity and acid, with a soft acid backbone.